You Have to Deserve Your Father's Love
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Coach Eric Taylor is forced to deal with his emotions after his father dies. A post season-5 FNL fanfic that also features Tami and Julie Taylor.
1. Chapter 1

**You Have to Deserve Your Father's Love**

**Description: **Coach Eric Taylor is forced to deal with his emotions after his father dies. Post season-5. Also features Tami and Julie Taylor.

**Genres:** Angst, romance, family, comfort, drama, and a little humor

**/***/**

**Chapter 1 (of 4)**

Coach Eric Taylor sat at the kitchen table looking through the old photo albums of the first eight years of his marriage to Tami. They were the only ones that would contain any pictures of his father. After he'd gotten remarried and settled in California, Graydon Taylor had never bothered to visit his son's family again. Not that Eric had made the effort to fly there either. He was disappointed his father wasn't a part of his children's lives, but, at the same time, he wasn't sure he really wanted the man around his kids. Those first eight years of Julie's life, the few times her grandfather had seen her, Graydon Taylor had been affectionate and kind enough, but Eric didn't know what might come out of the man's mouth if he spent more time around her.

Coach Taylor had gone to his father's wedding, but he hadn't taken Tami or Julie, and he hadn't lingered long at the reception. Eric always wondered, but never felt he really knew, if perhaps his father's remarriage had softened him, if perhaps his father's second wife had managed to take some of the acid out of his tongue. Maybe she had. Maybe she hadn't. Eric thought his father had been generally less critical on the phone over the past ten years than he had been during Eric's teen or college years, but in every conversation, the man still managed to hint that Eric should have made it to the NFL. He still managed to express surprise at Eric's success as a high school football coach. He still managed to marvel at Eric's ability to win and then maintain the commitment of "that sassy one all the boys were always chasing."

Coach Taylor's infrequent phone conversations with his father had always been a struggle. He would have to muster himself up for hours ahead of time before making the call, and when he was done, Tami would always sit on the couch and tell him to sit down in front of her on the floor. Then she would work extra hard on the knots in his neck and back.

He saw one picture now of Julie and her grandfather in front of the Christmas tree. Jules was about six, and she had just opened a box of earrings. They had been 14K gold too. She didn't even have her ears pierced at the time. Tami had taken her to the mall the next week. It had pissed Eric off. He'd seen the gift as an act of manipulation on his father's part, and Tami had told him to relax, that the man was just being generous to his granddaughter.

After he moved to California, Graydon Taylor continued to send regular birthday and Christmas gifts via mail to Julie and eventually Grace. They were always overly expensive, and once Julie turned thirteen, she started receiving sizeable checks –a thousand dollars for Christmas, a thousand dollars for her birthday. It had always thrilled Julie, but it had irritated Eric, and he had insisted that all but $50 of every check go straight to her college fund.

Coach Taylor now felt Tami's fingers trail lightly across the back of his shoulders. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of her hand sliding up his neck and then into his hair. Her soft lips touched the top of his head. He heard her put the beer bottle down next to him. "Thought you might like one."

"Thanks," he said, opening his eyes just in time to see her shapely figure disappearing through the open frame that led from the kitchen to the hallway. She had probably assumed he wanted his privacy, a silent time to reflect, and she was right, but he was glad for her momentary touch. He took a sip of the malty liquid and then turned the pages of the album, moving backward through the volume, watching Julie grow younger and younger, seeing Tami's hair grow lighter and shorter, seeing himself grow leaner.

/^^^/

Tami was reading when she sensed Eric enter the bedroom. It was almost eleven. She had waited up for him, but she hadn't wanted to disturb him while he sat looking through the albums. She knew his father's death had stirred up a lot of pain. This wasn't the usual mourning of a son for a father he had loved and lost. It was something much more complicated. There wasn't much Eric would miss about Graydon Taylor, but she knew her husband, knew he was regretting all the lost opportunities.

Eric stood beside the bed and stripped down to his boxers. He lay down next to her, laced his fingers together behind his head, sighed, and looked up at the ceiling.

She reached over and placed a hand gently on his chest. "Thinking about your dad?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

She could see the exhaustion seeping across his face. He hadn't slept much at all the previous night. The call from Graydon Taylor's second wife had come just a few minutes after they'd put Gracie to bed.

Tami removed her hand. "It's hard, losing the man who raised you, a man you so desperately wanted to connect with and never quite could."

"I don't want to talk about it, Tami."

She moved her hand away from his chest. She tried to mask her irritation, but she knew it crept into her tone. "I just want to help you, Eric. I hate seeing you like this." She looked down at him from where she sat. The irritation began to fade into compassion. He looked so tired, so dejected. "I love you. I'm your wife. I wish I could do something for you. Anything." She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder and felt the tension in his muscles. She began to dig a thumb into a knot in his shoulder, as though to prove the fact. "What can I do? I just want to be of some comfort. Help you relax a little bit, at least."

He turned his neck sideways to look at her. "Yeah?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said softly.

"Well, there's something you could do." He nodded downward. "You know, to help me relax."

She laughed, and then she realized he was serious. She hadn't thought he would be in the mood for anything like that, but she supposed it was even less likely he was in the mood for joking. She saw the reaction to her laughter in his eyes, the mingled annoyance and disappointment, the tinge of embarrassment. "Okay," she said. "I can do that."

"Tami, if you don't want - "

She stopped his words with a deep kiss. She moved her lips from his mouth to his chin, then his throat, trailing kisses down his chest and stomach. As she did so, she slipped her fingers beneath the elastic band of his boxers and slid them down. When her mouth reached its object, he gasped and placed an encouraging hand gently on the back of her head. "Tami," he murmured, "baby, you're so good to me."

Later, she drew herself back up and lay her head down on his chest. He encircled her with both arms. "Thank you," he said. "That was very, very relaxing." She heard the heavy drowsiness in his voice, but still he asked, "What would you like me to do for you?"

Tami kissed his chest. "I don't need anything tonight," she said. "Tonight was just for you."

"You sure?" he asked with a yawn. "I can rally. I will, if you want me to."

She smiled. "Eric, you're about to drop off. It's okay. Another night. If you can actually manage to sleep tonight, that's exactly what I want you to do."

"Mhmm…I love you, Tami."

She said, "I love you, too," but she knew he didn't hear her. The sleep had overtaken him.

Tami snuck quietly out of the bedroom and to the kitchen and began to look through the old photo album. Julie was so young in the pictures, so innocent, in such adoration of her parents. Now she called her mother twice a week.

There were very few pictures of Graydon Taylor. Tami had never understood the man's relationship with his son. He had been a charmer around her, though apparently secretly disapproving of her behind her back, blaming Eric's early marriage to her, in part, for his failure to make it to the NFL.

She'd urged Eric over the years to stay in contact with him, but, like her husband, she wasn't sure she wanted Graydon around the kids on a regular basis. Earlier in their marriage, Tami had feared Eric might behave toward their children as his father sometimes did toward him – distant, commanding, critical - but Eric had been quite different. He had his gruff moments, to be sure, but he had just as many tender moments, a willingness to listen to Tami's parenting perspective, a penchant for motivating others, and, most importantly, a strong desire to be a better father than the one he'd had. Neither of them, thank God, had become their own parents.

The funeral was going to be strange for Eric – saying goodbye to a man he, for the past twelve years, had spoken to only two or three times a year. Tami sighed and rose from the table to go pour herself a glass of wine. She knew she wasn't going to be going to bed anytime soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**** (of 4)**

Eric and Tami arrived in California in the late morning. Julie was going to fly down from Chicago later that afternoon. Gracie, however, wasn't with the Taylors. The girl had never met her grandfather and didn't seem to care that he was dead, so they had decided to leave her in the care of her Aunt Shelley rather than attempt to keep her quiet and confined on an airplane and reverent in the course of a solemn ceremony.

As the couple stepped out of the sliding glass doors near the baggage claim and onto the sidewalk, Tami asked, "So she's _sending_ a car for us? What does that even mean, _sending_ a car for us?"

"She's got money. The wedding was very expensive, very formal."

"So what does your stepmom's car look like? Did she tell you?"

"Don't call her that, Tami. She's not my stepmom."

"Well, technically, hon, she is."

"I met her once, almost twelve years ago, at the wedding. I've talked to her on the phone maybe six times total. She's _not_ my stepmom. Don't call her that."

"Fine, sugar. Didn't know you were so sensitive about it." She reached out and squeezed his hand. "Hey, you'll get through this."

A stretched limousine pulled up in front of them. Tami blinked. "That's...not...ours, is it?"

The chauffer emerged and asked, "Eric and Tami Taylor?"

Tami's face erupted in a smile and Eric nodded with clenched teeth. He took his suitcase and Tami's towards the trunk the driver had just popped open. The chauffer tried to take the suitcases from him, but Eric refused and insisted on putting them in himself and slammed the trunk close. Eric also opened the car door for himself, and he and Tami slid in the backseat. The chauffer told them it would be about a thirty to forty minutes before they arrived at Mrs. Betty Taylor's home. He raised the privacy glass.

"This is nice!" Tami exclaimed with a smile. "This is so spacious! Feel that leather." She ran a hand across the seat. "And our own driver and everything. And did you see how that window went up automatically?"

Eric grunted.

"And look, babe! There's a built in shelf with shot glasses and scotch. Let me pour you some."

"No."

"No? Come on. It's noon already. And you seriously need to relax, sugar."

"Tami, that's a $200 bottle. I'm not going to drink that woman's $200 scotch."

"Fine," Tami said. "I will." She poured herself a glass and took a leisurely sip.

"Mhmmm..yeah…ohhhh," she murmured, looking at him sensuously. "That's one fine glass of scotch." She licked her lips. "And I don't even _like_ scotch."

"Give me that," he said, taking the glass from her hand. "That's wasted on you." He took a small sip, rolled it on his tongue, and swallowed. "God you're right. That's amazing."

There was a rap on the privacy window, apparently a warning that the window was coming down. The driver reached a hand behind his shoulder. "It's for you," he said.

Eric took the phone.

"I hope you found my scotch," came the voice on the other end.

"Yes, ma'am, I did. Thank you very much. How are you holding up?"

"It isn't easy, but I'm getting by as best I can," Betty Taylor said. "I'm so glad you and your wife are coming to honor your father. He was a wonderful, warm, caring man."

Eric tried not to snort.

"When you get here, we'll send the car back for Julie. I just saw her flight got moved up."

When she had said her goodbye, Eric handed the phone back to the driver, and the privacy window slid up again. "Honor my father," he muttered. "Honor what? His ability to identify my every flaw?" Tami clutched his arm but remained silent. He drained the rest of his glass of scotch.

/***/

Tami whistled when the butler left them alone in the guest bedroom. She walked to the middle and turned in a circle to take it all in. Then she sauntered over to the bed and ran a hand over the soft, silky blanket. "It's got a canopy," she said, looking up at the rich fabric that shaded the top of the bed. "Lord that's gorgeous."

"It's ostentatious," Eric muttered, wheeling his suitcase over to the bed and plopping it up on top. "And girly." He glanced at his watch. It was after 3 PM. When they arrived, he and Tami had sat down to lunch with Betty Taylor in an immense dining room. The butler had served them a three-course meal. Eric had said very little to Betty himself, except what was necessary to answer her direct questions. He observed that she didn't seem particularly affected by her husband's death, but he had no idea how he had expected her to act. Betty was only 60, but his father had been 74 and had suffered from heart troubles for the past eight years. Eric was sure his death hadn't exactly come as a surprise. Perhaps Betty had come to grips with it before it happened. Or perhaps she was a private person who mourned in secret. Or perhaps she had just been ready for the man to go.

"But look, babe!" Tami said now, walking several steps from the bed and up a single stair to the large Jacuzzi. "And I haven't even looked at the adjoining private bath." She walked around the Jacuzzi to peek through the open door. "Double sinks," she said, taking a step inside. "And a walk-in shower."

Eric unzipped his suitcase and began taking out his clothes.

"Oh my God, Eric!" came Tami's voice from inside the bathroom. "Double shower heads! Babe, double shower heads!" She came out from the bathroom. "We have to take a shower together tonight!"

He chuckled a little. "Well, if you _insist_." He began to throw his clothes into a dresser drawer.

"Hang up that suit," Tami instructed him, "Before it gets wrinkles in it."

"I was just about to," he said. "And it already has wrinkles."

"Well I'm sure the butler can press it for you."

"I'm not having some butler – whatever the hell he is - press my suit. If it needs to be done, I'm sure my wife will dutifully do it for me."

Tami rolled her eyes. She came over and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Hon, I know all this show of wealth makes you uncomfortable. But come on. Try to enjoy being spoiled a little. The funeral and wake are going to be awkward and depressing for you. You don't need any more stress." She kissed him and took his hand, tugging on it. "Come on and look at the bathroom."

He let himself be led. While she effusively pointed out every ornate feature of the bathroom, he glanced out the window. "Hey, babe," he said. "Julie's here."

He peered through the glass at Julie who stood just outside the limousine, looking in awe at the mansion. Tami was already hurrying back through the room, though she paused as she passed the bed and lifted a book that lay on the end table there. "Poetry? In the guest bedroom? Betty's touch I guess."

Eric, emerging from the bathroom, shook his head. "No. My dad read a lot of poetry."

"Really?" she asked, opening the volume. "Graydon? He never struck me as the poetic type."

"He was always a great reader. Another way I disappointed him."

"You read."

"Not like that. But he didn't mind at first, because at least I played football, which was his other great love. Except I failed at that too, in his eyes, anyway. The coaching never impressed him."

She closed the book and put it down. "Well it impresses me, you know."

He nodded to the book. "Is it Robert Frost?"

"Yeah," she said.

"You know what his favorite Robert Frost quote was?"

She shook her head.

"You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's."

"Oh, babe." She came and wrapped her arms around him.

He buried his head in her hair and breathed in, but then he pulled away. "Let's go greet Julie."

/***/

Julie looked down from the mansion, to her left at the sculpted gardens, and then back to the phone in her hand. She texted: "Arrived safely. Gramp's widow is rich. Rich! Holy shit." Matt had volunteered to accompany her, but he had the opportunity to work some fruitful overtime at the gallery, so Julie had insisted he stay. "I don't need you for this. I barely knew my grandfather," she'd said. "I haven't seen him in years. I'm okay, Matt. I'm just doing my duty, really. And we need the money."

She began to follow the butler (is that what he was?) who was carrying her bags toward the house.

When she got through the front door, her parents were standing in the vast, marbled foyer. Julie threw her arms around her father and hugged him tightly. She drew away and looked at him. "How you holding up, Dad?"

"I'm a'ight. We weren't that close, you know."

"Still. He was your dad. I'm sorry."

"Thanks."

Julie felt a sudden spasm of fear that she could be in his place twenty years from now. It wasn't the fear that she might lose her father, the fear that had swept her when Matt's dad had died and her father had comforted her by putting an arm around her and promising, _I'm not going anywhere._ It was the fear that, two decades from now, her dad could die and she could feel precisely as he did now: _I'm a'ight. We weren't that close. _

Julie had last seen her father over six months ago at Christmas, and if it weren't for this funeral, she wouldn't have seen him again until Thanksgiving. When he wasn't talking to her on the phone, she simply didn't think of him. As a child, he had been her go-to guy for scraped knees and hurt feelings; as a teenager, she had constantly yearned for his approval, but now she had her own adult life: college, work, a serious relationship, older friends. She never thought to turn to him. She had Matt to turn to, after all, and it was good and right that she should leave her parents and cling to the man who would soon be her husband, but what if in that leaving there grew a great divide? What if, at her own father's funeral, she was left feeling not sadness, but regret?

Julie hugged her father again. She tried to shake the fear. It wasn't the same. Her dad hadn't seen her grandpa for twelve years. Grandpa had called only a few times a year, but Julie talked to her dad once a week. Sure, they were brief, informative calls, but they were regular. He always concluded with, "Love ya, Monkey Noodle." She'd given up reminding him she was nineteen and then twenty. Eventually she had simply accepted the affectionate nickname. She thought now she would actually miss it if he ever stopped using it.

Her father pulled away from her hug and then Julie received her mother's embrace.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 (of 4)**

Julie was relaxing with a book in the large arm chair in the sitting area attached to her bedroom when she heard a soft knock on the door. When she'd gotten to the room after dinner, she'd taken a bath in the large soaking tub in her adjoining bathroom, put on her PJs, and then called Matt to describe to him the impressive details of the mansion. She opened the door cautiously to peer out of the crack and saw that it was her mother. Julie let her in and they settled in separate chairs in the sitting room.

"How could you desert us down there, Jules?" her mom asked.

Julie shrugged. "I didn't sign up for Mrs. Richie-Rich." Her grandfather's widow had talked a great deal, imparting the minute details of the lives of people none of them knew in the least. Julie's mom had maintained as much of the conversation as possible, while Julie's dad sat staring into a corner with mostly glazed-over eyes. "You didn't leave Dad alone with her, did you?" Julie asked.

Her mother laughed. "No. He'd never forgive me if I did that. He made some excuse to retreat to the library, and I had to talk to her alone for ten more minutes before I could escape."

Julie's eyes widened. "The library? She has a library?"

"Of course she does."

"Does it have secret passageways?"

Tami chuckled and shook her head. "Not that I know of."

"This place is awesome. Do you have a huge soaking tub in your bathroom too?"

"We have a double-headed shower, but outside the bathroom there's a Jacuzzi."

"No fair! Why did you get the Jacuzzi?"

Her mom smiled. "Because we've lived longer. How are you feeling, Julie baby?"

"I'm okay, really. Obviously we weren't close. Is Dad doing okay?"

"I think so. It's hard for him, but for different reasons than the usual."

"Yeah. Grandpa was kind of an asshole, wasn't he?" Her mom and dad didn't talk much about her grandfather, but Julie had overheard a conversation here and there over the years and had put two and two together. Besides, why else wouldn't you see your own father for years?

"Don't speak ill of the dead."

"But he was."

"A lot of the time, yeah."

Julie shook her head. "How did Dad…manage not to be one himself?"

"He broke the cycle. I'm not my mother. And you won't be me."

Julie smiled. "No, I won't, but it really wouldn't be such a bad thing if I was."

Tami smiled back. "But, anyway, I didn't mean how are you with grandpa dying. I meant - how are you and Matt?"

"Good." Julie nodded. "We've set a date. Well, a week anyway. Sometime over Christmas break." They were having it in Texas so grandma Saracean could come easily, and because so many of their high school friends still lived there. "It's not football season, it's not spring training…so maybe Dad can actually make it."

"Don't be ridiculous, Julie. Your father wouldn't miss it for the world."

Julie snorted. "I know. Why would he give up the opportunity for another Matt chat? I'm terrified of what his toast is going to be like."

"It'll be better than you imagine. Your dad's a pretty good motivational speaker, you know."

"Motivational? It's a wedding."

Tami shook her head. "Yeah, you're right. You probably won't need the motivational speech until you've been married a few years and had a dose of reality. Maybe he should save it."

/***/

Eric stood in the vast library. Betty had told Eric that Graydon had personally populated the shelves over the past eleven years. It was strange that a man so obsessed with seeing his son in the NFL should be equally obsessed with books. Maybe that literary gene had skipped a generation, landed in Julie's DNA, but Tami was right, it wasn't as though Eric didn't read. It was just that he would rather have his skinned flayed by sea shells than read something like Walt Whitman or _Moby Dick_.

Coach Taylor's books were not neatly arranged in a formal library, standing straight and tall on their edges. They were haphazardly stacked on cinder-block shelves in the basement office, or piled on the floor against the brick wall, and about ninety percent of them were non-fiction. Sports biographies, sports psychology, sports almanacs, biographies of statesmen and generals, marriage books (he wouldn't admit to another guy to owning those, but damn had they helped), parenting books (several of which had either the words "spirited child" or "strong-willed child" somewhere in the title), books about the teenage psyche (as much to help him deal with his players as with Julie), and the occasional thriller or historical fiction novel. They weren't alphabetized by author. They were randomly grouped, dog-eared, spine-bent, and scribbled on in places where Gracie or, in her younger days, Julie had gotten ahold of them. None of the hardbacks had dustjackets, of course, because he got tired of picking the scattered things up from the floor where the kids had dragged them. Nor were they leather-bound like those in his father's library; they were more often held together with scotch tape, the poor man's laminate, covers clinging precariously to the spine.

He ran his fingertips over the volumes – dust-free volumes (that was the one thing his father's books and his own had in common, at least) - and continued to read the titles, trying to discern how his father's tastes and interests might have evolved over the years. Who was his father? Who had Graydon Taylor become, all those years they'd barely spoken?

Eric went and sat in the leather desk chair behind the massive cherry walnut desk and saw the volume open on it: a collection of modern verse. A thin bookmark lay between the pages, and his father had penciled a star in the margins next to a poem by Philip Larkin.

Despite his careful care and organization of his books, Graydon Taylor had no qualms about violating them in one way – he happily wrote in books, up and down the margins, inside the front and back cover, every inch of space, the way Eric drew play diagrams on napkins and magazines and the back of Gracie's reams of art work. But this time, Graydon Taylor had just drawn the star, underlined a few lines and written: "Damn truth." The lines he'd underlined read: "_They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They don't mean to, but they do._" Then farther down he'd underlined: "_Man hands on misery to man / It deepens like a costal shelf. / Get out as early as you can, / and don't have any kids yourself."_

The book was still open here. When had his father marked it? The very day he died, perhaps? And what had he been thinking? Of his own father, or of Eric?

Coach Taylor gritted his teeth, slammed the book shut, and left the library.

_/***/_

Tami was in her pajamas and drying her wet hair when Eric came in the bedroom. He slumped down in the armchair and watched her. "Guess you didn't wait to take that shower with me," he grumbled.

"Sorry. I didn't know when you'd be up."

"That's okay," he said, pulling off his shoes and socks, "I'm not really in the mood anyway."

He stood and slid his shirt over his head, dropped his shorts on the floor, and then stepped out of them. He was wearing the red silk boxers she'd bought him last year for Valentine's Day. He picked his clothes up, walked over to the empty suitcase, and shoved them in.

After he crawled under the covers on what would have been his side of the bed at home, Tami crawled in next to him. "I know things are hard for you right now, babe," she said. "But I don't know how to approach you. I don't know what you need. Do you want me near you, or do you want me to give you some space? Do you want me to talk about your father, or not talk about him?"

"Near me. Don't talk about him."

She slid over next to him. He turned on his side and put an arm around her waist and leaned his forehead against hers. "Your hair smells nice," he said.

"Passion mango," she said. "The shampoo."

"What's passionate about fruit?"

"Well, I suppose it depends what you're doing with the fruit and what the fruit symbolizes."

He kissed her and asked, "And what were you doing with the passion mango?"

"I was washing my hair."

"And your entire, naked drippin' body?"

"That would be a little drying, hon. I used body wash for that." She smiled. "I thought you weren't in the mood."

"Moods change."

/ * * * /

About ten minutes had passed since they had made love, and Tami began to pull away from Eric. She was about to get dressed in her night clothes before crawling back in bed to fall asleep. For years they had gotten dressed again after sex just in case Julie, and later Gracie, needed them in the middle of the night. Eventually, it had just become a habit.

"Don't," he said as he reached for her. He pulled her back against himself. "No one's gonna come knockin' here. Just sleep naked with me tonight."

"Why?" she asked, turning to him with a teasing smile. "So you can have easy access if you feel like going for two?"

"Nah," he said. "I just like your skin against mine. I like feelin' close to you like that. But, now that you mention it…the easy access is a bonus."

She laughed and kissed his nose. He rolled onto his back, and she settled her head against his chest. He let one arm alight across her back, his hand on her ribs. She was just beginning to drift off to sleep when his deep voice broke in: "I think my father might have had regrets."

She blinked herself awake. "About?"

"About…having me. Having a child."

"Hon - "

"I think he thought I was the reason he didn't make it to the NFL. He had to quit to work two jobs to support his growing family, you know. "

"Well he was wrong. He didn't make it because he wasn't good enough."

"Like me."

She raised her head, "Babe, that isn't even what you wanted. Not really."

"I wouldn't have turned it down."

"But you're good at what you do. Great. And you have more positive influence. You do more good. You probably have a better family life than you would have otherwise too. Don't you think?"

"Yeah. I don't regret any of the choices I made. Getting married young, quitting the team my senior year to work…I don't regret any of it. I just wish I could have made my father see…what…you know. What I was _meant_ to do."

She sighed and kissed his shoulder. "That's why you've always supported Julie with the dance and the literature, even if you don't get it at all. You understand how much that support matters. I'm sorry you didn't have it yourself."

He slid his hand over to the small of her back and began to rub. She murmured her appreciation. Tami eased a leg between his and snuggled in closer. "Don't ever leave me," he whispered.

She jerked her head up. "What? Where did that come from?"

"Nowhere," he said. "Just…realizing how much I need you."

She lay her head back down against him. "Well, I already made that promise. Before a whole host of witnesses. You remember that?"

"Vaguely," he said, stroking her back. "Something about sickness and health, right? Feast and famine. Months of plentiful sex and months of no sex. Football season and non-football season. Yeah, I remember."

She giggled against his chest. She kissed his flesh and murmured, "You know I'm behind you. Forever and ever." Her good humor faded and the frustration crept in. Tami had always tried to encourage Eric, but she sometimes felt like she was swimming against a tide with him. Even when it came to coaching, his field of greatest confidence, he would have these fits and starts. One day he'd be assertive and self-confident and commanding, and the next he'd be anxious and stressed out, unable to sleep at night, feeling like the weight of the town was on his shoulders, and that if he failed, if he lost the next game…

He would be like that in their relationship too. Utterly suave one hour, and then unsure of his reception the next. Although Eric never talked much about his father, from what little he had quoted of the man, and from what little she had directly witnessed, she'd gotten the picture. She sighed. "Your father really did a number on your self-esteem."

She could tell from the way his muscles tensed beneath her that her words had annoyed him. "All this modern day emphasis on self-esteem," he said, "is such an utter bunch of bull - "

She sat up and put a finger on his lips. "Shhh!" she ordered. "I should have known you were going to say that. Forget I mentioned it." She took away her finger and he bit his bottom lip.

"Hey," he said, a little contritely, "I know you're always going to be here." He drew her assertively on top of himself. "I _know_ that."

"Do you?" she asked in a tone that tried to communicate how much she wanted an honest answer.

"Yeah, Tami," he answered. "I do. I just wanted to hear it again." He slid his hands down to her upper thighs and smiled playfully. "The only thing I don't know for _sure_ at the moment is…" - he pressed his lower body up against hers - "are you going to let me go for two?"

She kissed his chin and then his ear. "What do you think?" she murmured.

"I'm pretty confident the answer is yes. Because, you know, Tami, I esteem myself."

She began to laugh and rolled off him.

"Where you goin'?" he grumbled.

"Well, if you esteem yourself, I guess you don't need me to."

"Nah, nah," he was laughing now too. "Get back over here, babe. Get back on top of me and esteem me."

Still giggling a little, Tami returned and straddled him. She whispered in his ear, "Oh, I'm going to esteem you, all right. I'm going to esteem you good and hard."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 (of 4)**

Breakfast was, Coach Taylor was grateful to discover, serve yourself. The butler had set out the buffet, but at least there was no one filling Eric's glass and bringing him food. After making his selections, Coach Taylor sat down at the table next to Julie and looked at her plate. She'd taken fruit and a dry English muffin.

"You're missin' out on some pretty fantastic bacon," he told her. He lifted his plate and put it right under her nose. "Smell that."

"Ewww, Dad," she said, pushing his plate away, "get that dead pig out of my face."

He smirked and put his plate back down.

"Where's mom?" she asked.

"Takin' another double-headed shower. She can't get enough." He ran a hand through his still damp hair. He hadn't remained in the shower that long: just long enough to wash up after he and Tami had sex against the side wall beneath the steamy spray that caressed them from both sides. His wife had chosen to linger longer in the shower. He was pretty sure she was going to insist they use the Jacuzzi tonight.

It was a little weird, all this indulgence in the midst of burying his father, as though they were on a second honeymoon. Yet he had to admit, it was definitely helping to soothe the sting. He suspected Tami was using sex to distract him from the stress of his father's death, because she didn't know what else to do to help. That was okay. It didn't really matter why she was doing it. He was just grateful she was.

"And where's Mrs. Richie Rich?"

"Don't call her that. That's rude," he said, but he couldn't help but smile.

"I guess she's not an early riser."

"Guess not. How are you and Matt?" he asked.

"Great. Why? Hoping we broke up before I could get hitched?"

"No, Julie babe, I'm not hoping that. He's a good kid. You could do worse. A lot worse. I just hope you have the sense to get your B.A. first is all."

"Like you and mom didn't?"

"If your mother and I jumped off a cliff, would you?"

Julie laughed. "Well, I'm well on my way to a B.A."

"And then wither shalt thou goeth with thy English major?"

She rolled her eyes. "I don't know. Probably the same place you went with your gut education major. Something completely unrelated."

"Coaching is not unrelated to education. Neither is teaching which, I might add, I also do."

"Now. You didn't used to."

"Well I did used to. When I started out. And then I didn't for years. And now I do again." Because in Philadelphia they wouldn't just call him the athletic director and pay him a decent salary. He actually had to teach to make what he used to make in Dillon.

Julie nibbled a slice of cantaloupe. Then she looked at him teasingly. "So…Mom said you're teaching math next year. Remember when you tried to help me with Algebra II?" She patted his head. "See, your hair is already standing up just remembering it."

"Well this will be Algebra I. And I'm reviewing over the summer. And it's only temporary. Until they can get a math major to fill the slot."

They ate in silence for a while. "Thanks for coming, Jules," he said at last. "You didn't have to. You didn't know him at all."

"Yeah, but…guess what? I know you."

He half smiled and dug into his eggs.

/***/

Tami didn't know most of the people at the viewing. She only dimly recognized Graydon Taylor's sister and children - Eric's aunt and three cousins - all of whom Tami had last seen at her own wedding. Eric had never had much in the way of an extended family, at least not on his father's side. His mother had died when Eric was just a boy, and none of her relatives had come to see off the long-ago re-married Graydon.

"Do you want me to go up with you?" Tami asked. Eric nodded. She laced her arm through her husband's and they went and stood in front of the casket. She looked at Eric, not at the body. His face paled a little and she saw him swallow. She held his arm tighter. "At my mom's funeral," he whispered to her, "My dad asked for a closed casket. When we got there…it was open. Her brothers had told the funeral director to do it, that it wasn't proper tradition…" He shook his head. "My dad blew a gasket. And look at him now. So serene."

Tami didn't think she could squeeze his arm any tighter, so she put an arm around his waist instead. He leaned against her. They stood there silently for a while. Eric seemed numb. Tami was thinking of guiding him away when he mumbled, "Bye, Dad. Sorry for all the ways I disappointed you."

He pulled away from Tami's grip and headed to the back of the room. Tami lingered at the casket. She looked at Graydon Taylor, or the shell of Graydon Taylor. "Goodbye, Graydon," she said. "Thanks for helping put my daughters through college." It was all the respect she could think to pay him.

[***]

"Did you find any?" Tami asked from where she sat immersed in the warm, bubbling waters of the Jacuzzi.

Eric closed the door, walked into the bedroom, and held up the wine bottle with one hand. In the other hand he held two glasses. "Did I find any?" he asked. "That woman has an entire cellar. She told me to take anythin' I wanted and sent the butler with me to tell me the story of every bottle. That's why it took me so long."

"Ooooh…What did you pick?"

"The _only_ Chardonnay I could find that costs under $40." He walked over to the Jacuzzi and set a glass down on the tile rim, popped the loose cork out of the bottle (it had already been opened downstairs), and poured Tami a glass.

"Why can't you bring yourself to accept her generosity, hon?"

He waved a hand about the room. "I can't give you any of this." He set down his glass on the other side of the Jacuzzi and filled it. He put down the wine bottle.

"I don't expect you to, babe. I don't need you to. I'm just enjoying it."

"Yeah, well when you get so excited about…never mind."

Women had a reputation for being emotional creatures, Tami thought, but it was men who were particularly sensitive, and about the oddest things…and they could be worse than women, sulking around, expecting you to just guess what was irritating them. They had these raw egos with a hundred points of vulnerability, and you could bruise them without even trying. "Just get in the Jacuzzi, Eric."

"Yes, ma'am." He took off his clothes and got in across from her. He sighed, stretched his arms across the rim, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.

"Nice, isn't it?" she asked.

"It ain't awful," he said.

She picked her glass up and said, "You remembered my favorite white, like you always do, because you're thoughtful." She took a leisurely sip.

He put his glass down. "Hey," he said, gesturing with a jerk of his head. "Hey, c'mere. C'mere and let me rub your shoulders."

She smiled. "Oh, is that what you want to do? Rub my shoulders?"

"Yeah. Just a little shoulder rub."

She brought her wine glass to the other side of the tub and set it next to his. She turned around and he wrapped his arms around her. "Hon," she said, "I love you – "

"I know."

" – but those aren't my shoulders."

"They're not?" he asked, and kissed her neck. "I guess not, but they seemed like they could use a light massage."

She chuckled and put her hands over his, lifted them, and put them on her shoulders. "Let's just enjoy the Jacuzzi and the wine for a bit. Maybe save that for later."

He sighed, but he complied and began to rub her shoulders. "_Maybe_ save that for later? So, what percentage yes is this maybe?" he asked.

"70% yes, 30% no. Do you like those odds, Coach?"

"Those are good odds," he said, sliding his hands outward and massaging the sides of her shoulders. He leaned his head down and asked, "Is there anythin' I could do to increase them even more?"

"Hmmm…" She settled back into his touch. "Tell me how much you love me."

"More than you know, babe," he said, and kissed the back of her neck. He breathed in. "More than you even suspect."

**[***]**

Tami watched Eric push through the funeral in a semi-daze. He managed to mount the steps to the podium and say a few words, but he stuttered, lacked enthusiasm, and eventually ended with "He will be missed," before resuming his spot beside his wife in the pew. It was untrue, Tami thought, but it was also true…Eric would miss his father, not because he was dead, but because he was never really there. Because Eric had always missed him.

Now, later that night, as they lay spooned together in bed, the last night before they would return to Pennsylvania, Tami wished Eric would say something. She wanted desperately to know how he was feeling. He held her tightly, and she could feel the stiffness in his body, the tension in every nerve. When he hadn't wanted to talk, she'd defaulted to her usual suggestion of late: sex. She didn't know how else to comfort him. But this time he'd said no.

Finally she turned around and faced him. She put a gentle hand on his cheek. His eyes were open and he looked wide awake. "What's going on in that head and heart of yours?" she asked.

"I told you I didn't want to talk about it."

"Well I do. I'm worried about you, Eric."

"And talkin' is going to make you less worried?"

"Yes."

"A'ight then." He rolled onto his back and draped an arm over his forehead. "I didn't want to come to this funeral, but I think it was good for me. Hearing all those eulogies today…it gave me a glimpse into what was good about my father, you know? I know he was disappointed in me. But you know what? I was disappointed in him too. And a lot of the pressure he put on me…I think he just wanted to prove that he hadn't failed my mom by producing the most successful kid he could. He made a lot of mistakes. He said a lot of things he shouldn't have said. But…my father was just a broken human being. I don't know that I would have done any better than him if I had been in the same circumstances. I don't think I'm a better man. I think I've just been a luckier man. Because I have you."

Tami stroked his cheek. "I'm glad you can make peace with your dad like that, but, babe, you _are_ a good man. You're a strong man. You're a good, loving father to Gracie and Julie."

"I'm trying, anyway."

"You're succeeding." She leaned in for a deep kiss. Then she rolled over on her side and he followed suit, putting his arm around her and settling his chin on top of her head.

He yawned. "G'night, babe," he murmured. "Thanks for…for just being here."

[***]

Eric was glad someone else had gotten up as early as he had to hit the breakfast table. He was even more glad it was Julie. He filled his plate and sat down next to her. "When does your plane leave?" he asked.

"About the same time as yours, I think. I know we're all going to the airport together."

"Good, a little more time with you." He reached for his coffee mug and savored the warmth. After he'd taken a sip, he said. "I love you, Jules. And I'm proud of you. You've become a very mature and responsible young woman. You're handling both college and a part-time job while maintaining a serious relationship, which isn't always easy. You're a good writer, and a good student. You're meeting the world head on, and I'm damn proud of you."

Julie looked a little startled. It's not as if he'd never said he was proud of her before. Maybe he hadn't said it in those words, and maybe he hadn't said it recently, but she didn't need to look so startled.

"But that's not why I love you," he continued. "Not because of anything you do. I love you because you're mine." Okay, he'd borrowed that line from a children's book Gracie asked him to read twice a week, but that didn't mean he didn't mean every word of it.

"Thanks, Dad," Julie said quietly. "I love you too."

He buttered his English muffin, put the knife down, and said, "I don't want…I don't want us to drift apart. I know you're all grown up now, but…I just…"

She reached over and put her hand over his. "I know, Dad. It's not going to happen. What happened to you and your dad? It's not going to happen to us. Because I don't want it to either." She took her hand away and started eating.

Eric looked sideways at her and smiled. She was a lot more mature than she had been two years ago, but in a lot of ways, she was still a little girl. His little girl.

**THE END**


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